Tornado Touched Down in Luzerne County

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FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP -- The National Weather Service in Binghamton now says a tornado is to blame for the damage found across the county in Fairmount Township in Luzerne County.

"We definitely saw a clear path, and we had some eyewitness reports of seeing what looked like a funnel come through," said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Brewster.

Besides Fairmount Township where the tornado hit, a National Weather Service crew also looked at damaged parts of Franklin Township, outside Dallas. That's where John Puterbaugh's family owns 75 acres.

"The winds picked up, started ripping everything apart. It picked up the carport, threw it to the top of the trees, and back down," said John Puterbaugh, of Franklin Township.

The split trees and limbs made it clear to National Weather Service officials that something touched down here in Franklin Township. They're just not sure it was a tornado.

"Just have to take it back to the shop and look at radar signatures again," said Brewster.

Meanwhile John Puterbaugh said he has a lot of cleaning to do.

"There's a lot of trees down, a lot of tops ripped out of different trees. There's two or three different paths that the winds went and took everything down."

Fortunately, no one was hurt.

"What was running through your mind when you saw, especially the carport come up and come back down?" a reporter asked.

"Getting my daughter in the cellar," said Puterbaugh.

The National Weather Service expects to make a decision about what touched down in Franklin Township within the next two days.

8 comments

Learnto Reid

Can you people read? As others have said, one tornado was confirmed in Fairmount Twp – That’s in Luzerne County! The other, in Franklin Twp, Luzerne County, is unconfirmed. So the headline “Tornado (notice it’s singular, as in one) touched down in Luzerne County” is correct and not at all misleading. BTW, don’t you people have anything batter to do?

kris

Why is the title of the story “Tornado touched down in Luzerne County”, when in the body of the story it clearly states the national weather service has not made a decision yet if this was a tornado or not? That’s a little misleading if you ask me

L.S.

Fred

Uhhh..the title of the story is ” Tornado touched down in Luzerne County”. Then, the first line of the story clearly states that a tornado is responsible for damage in Fairmont Township, which is in Luzerne County. The only uncertainty is in Franklin Township, which is also in Luzerne County. So, in one township there was a tornado, in another there is a questionable weather pattern.